At five hours a week, the workload is a little heavier than that imposed by some other free online courses. Another difference is the lack of a certificate of accomplishment, a token offered by some of the other Universities running similar courses online through services like Coursera.

The course is billed as an entry-level affair for non-programmers. Over the course of the course students will tackle the following topics:

One answer is the Centre for Quantum Computation & Communication Technology at the University's School of Physics, as the Centre is at the forefront of global quantum computing efforts, as The Reg has often reported. There's no link your correspondent can discern between the online course and the Centre, but if you need any proof the University is likely to put on a decent course, perhaps that will be enough. ®